Battered Women
by
Rosemary J. Stauber, PhD
Walker (1984) defined a battered woman as:
a woman, 18 years of age or over, who is or or has been in an intimate relationship with a man who repeatedly subjects or subjected her to forceful physical and/or psychological abuse. (p. 203)
Jacobson and Gottman (1998) discussed battering:
Battering is physical aggression with a purpose: that purpose is to control, intimidate, and subjugate another human being. Battering is always accompanied by emotional abuse, is often accompanied by injury, and is virtually always associated with fear and even terror on the part of the battered woman. (p. 25).
Miller (1995) focused only on emotional abuse in her book. She described an abusive marriage as one in which: " . . . a spouse (the man in more than 95 percent of cases) uses his power--be it muscle or subtler manipulation--to control his partner. The irony is that he doesn't control himself (p. 15)."
Notice, Walker's definition included a "subtler manipulation" (which can be equated to emotional abuse). Psychological abuse can be as devastating as physical abuse. Jacobson and Gottman include emotional abuse and bring in the most important element of control. Although control is implied in Walker's definition, Jacobson and Gottman stress that control is the purpose for the violence.
Miller discussed further, the devastation of emotional, or psychological, abuse:
Emotional battering, then, runs the gamut from a steady grinding down of a woman to emotional trauma. While her bones are never broken, her flesh never bruised, her blood never spilled, she is wounded nonetheless. With self-confidence and self-respect gone, she lives, empty, with no self left to assert. She cedes control of her life to her abuser. She is helpless. (Miller, 1995, p 32)
Incidence and Prevalence
It is difficult to determine incidence since many battering incidents are never reported. Early authors estimated 50-60% of women are abused at some time in their lives. These authors also pointed out that battering cuts across socioeconomic lines. While wives of professional men and executives are less likely to show up in shelters for battered women, they exist nevertheless. And independence is a recommended means of preventing spouse abuse, yet many abused women work outside the home, even in professions. How she sees her role as a woman may be a factor. For example, women who have a traditional view of women are more likely to be in a battering situation. Jacobson and Gottman cited Koss, et al. in stating: "Each year at least 1.6 million wives in the United States are severely assaulted by their husbands and at least one-third of all murdered women are killed by husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, or ex-boyfriends."
The following statistics came from various internet sources on battered women.
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It is estimated that 8 to 12 million women are abused at some time in their life. About 2 million women per year are assaulted by a domestic partner. The physician is often the first person to whom the spouse-abuse victim turns for help.
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There is no psychological profile of the battered woman; however, at greatest risk are women with the following characteristics:
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Single, Separated, Or Divorced
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Ages 17 Through 28
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Alcohol Or Drug Abusers Or Partners Of Abusers
- Half of all female murder victims are killed by a current or former partner. Battered women account for 20% to 35% of women seeking care for any reason in an emergency room. Battered women constitute about 50% of the mothers of abused children.
- Men can also be abused in intimate relationships, but this is far less common than women as victims. (Most authors say 5% of all reported abuse is inflicted on males.)
The following came from a website citing: The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing , Inc. Copyright 1995.
- A 1992 national survey by the Family Violence Prevention Fund found that 13% of women surveyed had been physically attacked by their partner.
- A Philadelphia study found that 20% of women presenting with injuries at emergency rooms were victims of domestic violence. (Center for Women's Policy Studies, 1984 and Filtcraft and Stark, 1978).
- A 1988 study by the National Women Abuse Prevention Project found that physical abuse of women resulted in more injuries to women than rape, muggings and automobile accidents combined.
- In 1992, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported that 1 in 5 of all aggravated assaults reported to the police were aggravated assaults in the home. (Violence Against Women, 1992)
- There exist 3 times more animal shelters than battered women's shelters in the United States. (Violence Against Women, 1992)
- In 1991 at least 21,000 domestic crimes were reported against women every week. (Violence Against Women, 1992)
Cycle of Violence:
Walker (1979) discovered, as she interviewed hundreds of battered women, a battering cycle which explains how the woman becomes victimized and stays in the relationship. According to Walker, there are three phases which vary both in length and intensity for the same couple and between different couples. This cycle has been affirmed by many theorists (as well as shelter staff and therapists.)
Phase I. Tension Building.
This phase consists primarily of verbal abuse and emotional isolation. Women have a variety of ways of handling this phase. They frequently learn to recognize its incipience by the set to the jaw, or the rigidness of his body as he comes in the door. Some women become more nurturing, compliant and solicitous, trying to anticipate his every whim to prevent his anger from exploding. Many attempt to manipulate other family members, especially children, ushering them into another room, keeping them quiet, in order to control his environment for him and keep him from becoming irritated. All of these maneuvers are likely to reinforce his belief that it is up to her to keep his anger from escalating and he feels justified in directing abusiveness toward her. Sometimes a woman will try to stay out of his way. He may see this as rejection and become infuriated. She's in a double-bind. No matter what her response is, it's wrong.
Denial is an important defense mechanism for the abused woman. She minimizes the physical damage and rationalizes the event itself, either blaming herself or blaming his drinking or his job-related stress. She will frequently cover up the violence out of shame and embarrassment and also because she's afraid if she lets others know, he will increase the violence. This cover up behavior often drives away friends and family and increases her isolation.
Walker (1979) and others believe the batterer is spurred on by her passiveness and therefore does not try to control himself. He may realize, at some level, that his behavior is inappropriate, and he is afraid she will leave him. Paradoxically, he escalates in order to keep her captive! Both seem to want to stay in this first phase to avoid the second.
As the tension mounts in this first phase, she finds it harder to restore equilibrium after each minor incident. Less able to defend herself against the pain and more and more exhausted, her anger may begin to show through the complacent mask she has learned to wear. She is likely to begin to withdraw more and more fearing he will recognize the anger and this will set off the explosion that she knows is coming. He observes this moving away and moves in even closer, hovering and watching for any sign of the anger he very likely knows is there. The tension approaches an unbearable level.
Phase II. Acute Battering Incident.
Walker (1979) identifies three characteristics of the violence that were mentioned in many interviews: out of control, "teach her a lesson," and overkill. The batterer doesn't seem to understand what happened. He stops when he thinks he's taught her the lesson, but by then he has inflicted serious injury. In order to justify the behavior, he will recite the petty annoyances and grievances he has against her and will frequently blame drinking or overwork for the explosion.
We often hear that the woman "brings it on herself," and it is true that sometimes the women provoke the battering incident. As the tension mounts, she cannot tolerate the terror, anger and anxiety any longer. By provoking the incident she maintains some sense of control (at least over when it happens), and she knows from experience that the phase following this one is idyllic by comparison.
The battering incident, according to Walker (1979) can last up to twenty-four hours. The trigger for the explosion can be anything and is probably a combination of annoying external events and the internal state of the perpetrator. Generally, he is the only one who can end this phase. One person I was working with talked about a siege in which her husband barricaded the doors and beat her and the children over a two day period. This was all, supposedly, because she had spoken in a friendly manner to the mailman.
The battering has nothing to do with the woman's behavior, although he claims it does. Sometimes the batterer awakens his wife to begin the assault. Beginning with a verbal barrage, he is infuriated if she answers back in kind and even more infuriated if she stays silent. Remember, also, Jacobson and Gottman's definition cited above. The reason for the battering is to bring her under control or to maintain control.
Phase Three. Kindness and Contrite Loving Behavior.
This phase completes the victimization because she is convinced this is the real person. All of the tension of the first two phases is gone. He believes she won't do it again, that he has taught her the lesson. He arrives (maybe in her hospital room) with flowers, candy and gifts. If she resists his approaches, he enlists his family to help and soon the two are together again. A symbiotic bonding takes place. They think together they can conquer the world. The sense of over dependence and over-reliance on each other is obvious in each stage, but the bonding aspects are cemented here. Intervention must occur before this stage begins, preferably as the tension mounts in phase I.
Shelters are typically hidden in recognition of the tendency of the batterer to hunt down his wife or get his family to intercede. Women are counseled not to give the address to anyone. And in San Antonio (and probably in most cities), the telephone number does not carry the prefix of the area it is actually located in. In spite of these precautions, a man will occasionally find the place and come to plead with or harass his wife. Sometimes the wife herself gave it to him.
Etiology
While early feminist authors indicted our patriarchal society as a fitting climate and major permission-giving entity for marital violence, more recent research focused on the batterer bringing us new information about the psychological makeup of the batterer.
It is clear, still, that our patriarchal society contributes to the problem by not bringing appropriate accountability to the system. Consider the ancient Roman and English laws. They are the basis for the United States family law which deprived a married woman of legal status and in fact gave her the status of chattel of her husband. Although the laws have been changed and are still changing toward equality for women, the court systems are still permeated with the perspective of male supremacy, and the philosophy that "a man's home is his castle" prevails in police and court systems throughout the land.
Early laws recognized the husband's right, duty, even, to rule and discipline his wife. Then restrictions were introduced, first the "rule of thumb" was devised (a law that stated a wife was to be beaten with a rod no thicker than the man's thumb). This was later replaced with a law that limited the number of stitches inflicted wounds could require before the perpetrator was vulnerable to criminal charges. Gradually these laws have been replaced by an attitude of "benign neglect" which persists in many municipal systems, in spite of laws that recognize assault against a spouse as a criminal offense. In San Antonio, emotional abuse is a Class C misdemeanor.
Walker (1979) cited the custom of blaming women for being beaten (Why doesn't she leave? She must be masochistic. She provokes it.) While this has been changing in the past two decades primarily because of women's efforts to bring these issues into the open with public education and the provision of safe-houses and shelters, the tendency is still present today. Walker cites William Ryan's (1971) "blame the victim" explanation of the justification for prejudicial attitudes in racial discrimination and uses it to explain these attitudes toward battered women. It is easier to be comfortable with the poverty of minorities if we convince ourselves that it's their fault they are poor (or they prefer living that way) and it's easier to be comfortable with women being abused if we convince ourselves that it's their fault or they like it.
As Walker (1979) pointed out:
Blaming women for causing men to batter them has resulted in their shame, embarrassment, denial, further loss of self-esteem. The batterer feels justified in his violence, because society says it is really the woman's fault. It perpetuates his notion that he should beat her because she did something to make him angry. What gets lost in this victim precipitation ideology is the fact that this violence is NOT acceptable behavior. (p. 15)
Many authors talk about the 911 call that brings the police. The woman is hysterical and distraught and the man is calm and collected. They tend to blame her. From Jacobson & Gottman:
During the early years of mandatory arrest laws the confused police officer would often arrest both parties instead of just the batterer. At times, the battered woman would be arrested instead of the perpetrator. This occurred in part because police officers would enter a scene and find an enraged, apparently out-of-control woman, and a calm, rational man. (p 214)
Why does she stay?
"Why do they stay?" is frequently the question.
The Original Learned Helplessness Theory
Martin Seligman (1975) developed a theory of Learned Helplessness which offers an elegant explanation for the difficult-to-understand phenomenon of the woman who stays and stays and stays in the battering situation.
Seligman's original theory can be stated as follows:
When an individual has no way to control the outcome of a situation, s/he feels a lack of motivation to TRY control the outcome; has difficulty learning that s/he CAN have an affect on the outcome and is generally fearful and/or depressed. (See Seligman, 1975 pp. 55-56).
Helplessness Saps the Motivation to Initiate Responses
Seligman and his colleagues performed the following experiments to demonstrate learned helplessness in dogs:
On the first day, the experimenters strapped dogs into Pavlovian hammocks; they applied electric shocks randomly. The shocks caused no damage to the animals, and they were moderately painful. Since the slings kept the animals from moving, they could not escape the shocks, and the randomness added a dimension in that they couldn't even learn to predict when the shocks were coming.
On the second day, the experimenters moved the animals to double cages with a low barrier between the two cages. When a shock was applied to the cage the dog was in, it could escape the pain by jumping to the other side. However, two-thirds of the dogs, instead of jumping the barrier, thereby escaping the shock, would lie in the bottom of the cage and whimper. The helplessness appeared to generalize to other areas since the helpless dogs were passive and submissive outside the shuttle box, as well!
Helplessness Disrupts the Ability to Learn
A naive dog that accidentally jumps a barrier during helplessness trials will repeat the process readily to avoid future shocks. Dogs that have been submitted to helplessness training, however, do not seem to absorb this learning. Even after accidentally making the move that brings escape from the shocks, they continue, in future trials, to accept the shock rather than make the move to escape. Seligman expressed the opinion that uncontrollability causes an organism to think it will do no good to respond.
Helplessness Produces Emotional Disturbance
The dogs' passive behaviors were seen as indications of emotional deficits. Seligman (1975), equated learned helplessness to depression in humans.
Learned Helplessness and Humans
Similar studies, based on this original model of learned helplessness, have been performed on several species, including human beings. Demonstrating the application of this theory to human beings, several studies were performed using people (Hiroto, 1974). No, they didn't use uncontrollable shock on humans. They used unsolvable puzzles, uncontrollable loud aversive noise, etc. Several researchers have supported Seligman's theory with their findings of deficits in human subjects (Dweck & Repucci, 1973; Fosco & Geer, 1971; Hiroto, 1974; Krantz, Glass, & Snyder, 1974). Lenore Walker (1979, 1984) used the construct of learned helplessness to explain battered women's tendency to remain within a violent relationship. Several authors challenge this theory as applied to battered women saying it's too simplistic an explanation.
While I agree that the learned helplessness theory is only one possible explanation for a battered woman's refusal to leave a battering situation, I submit that the people who deny its usefulness have not gone far enough in their understanding of the theory. The reformulated model clarifies considerably.
In 1978 Seligman, with colleagues, Teasdale and Abramson updated the theory of learned helplessness in order to explain the impact that humans' ability to think had on the outcome of uncontrollability. Some reacted with helplessness and others "bounced back right away." What was the difference? they asked. Eventually they produced the reformulated learned helplessness model which took into account the differences in human reactions that were linked to attribution theory (Seligman, 1991). Attribution theory focuses on the individual's explanation of the outcome, i.e., what s/he thinks is the cause of the event.
The Reformulated Model
The work of Seligman with Abramson and Teasdale (Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, 1978) recognized certain inadequacies in the original theory in that it did not focus on the individual's understanding of the CAUSE of the event, at all. It did not differentiate between internal and external control (whether the individual blamed self or others) and did not address the issues of generalization and chronicity (whether the individual perceived the cause to be something that was present in all situations and overtime). The researchers then incorporated attribution theory into their model in order to compensate for the weaknesses of the original theory as applied to human beings.
While negative events could contribute to a sense of uncontrollability and therefore helplessness in human beings, even more important is how the individual thinks about those negative events. Does s/he believe the problem to be unsolvable; or to be solvable but s/he lacks the ability to solve it? Does s/he attribute the cause to her/his own actions or personality traits? And, if so, does s/he see these actions and/or personality traits as permanent and present in all kinds of situations?
An assessment of internal/external attribution, then, is critical to the determination of learned helplessness in a human being. According to the reformulated model, global/specific and stable/unstable attributions are equally important. Global attributions are likely to lead to a sense of helplessness in all kinds of situations and stable attributions are likely to lead to a chronic sense helplessness.
The reformulated learned helplessness model generated by Abramson et al. (1978) can be stated as follows: In the presence of uncontrollable negative events, the generation of learned helplessness depends upon the individual's explanatory style: an individual who attributes the cause of a bad event to her/his own inadequacy in a way that applies in all situations and over time experiences learned helplessness. In addition, attributing positive events to someone else, related to a specific situation and at an instant in time add to the sense of helplessness. ("My boss was being generous that day" as opposed to "I'm smart and industrious" to explain a promotion.)
On the other hand, an individual who explains the cause of a bad event as due to outside events or circumstances and who explains positive events with internal, global and stable attributions is less likely to become depressed.
This societal attitude contributes significantly to the sense of helplessness that makes it very difficult for the woman to leave. Consider Seligman's (1975) original theory of Learned Helplessness. Each battering incident is a "random shock." Each attempt to escape is met with a form of the "Pavlovian hammock," i.e., uncontrollability.
For example: At the first battering incident, she goes home and mother says, if not actually, in effect, "You made your bed, now lie in it." She goes to the minister or priest, who counsels her on being more loving to her mate and then he won't beat her. She goes to the doctor who says, "What did you do to upset him so?" and gives her a tranquilizer so she'll be less agitated and provoking. She calls the police who answer her call and say they must see the violence in order to arrest him and then, after they leave, he beats her up for calling them. Or, the policeman says, "He's claiming you attacked him. It's your word against his." She goes to municipal court to file charges and is told she can't get a restraining order unless she files for divorce. She convinces her husband to go to a marriage counselor who stresses the importance of effective communication, thereby including her as part of the problem. (Remember, the battering occurs out of his need to control her absolutely.) So she begins to understand there is no escape and she is very likely to begin to accept his explanation. He beats her because she's "worthless," "a slut," "a piece of shit," and so forth. (Note: these are global statements about who she IS.)
Then consider the reformulated learned helplessness model. If she is accepting full blame for his beating her because she is inadequate or bad, she's in that devastating depressive position. She will have difficulty being motivated to escape and she will have difficulty learning that she can have any impact at all on her situation. Remember, Seligman's (1975) dogs. Even when they were out of the sling and could easily escape, they lay in the bottom of the cage and whimpered. In an effort to reteach them that they could escape, the researchers attached leashes to their collars and dragged them across the barrier to escape. It took between 50 to 200 times for the animals to learn they could get away from the painful shock. (Normal dogs, when appropriately reinforced, learn new tricks in 6 - 10 trials.) Women tend to leave and return to their batterers five or six times before their final leave-taking.
In the early days of a Women's Shelter I am familiar with, there was a rule that women who went back to their husbands could not return to the shelter. This was in the late 70s, before we knew so much. They were, in fact, being further abused by the agency that was set up to help them escape their situation.
See graphics below:
Figure 1. Reformulated Model Examples of Causal Explanations
Event "My Checking Account is Overdrawn"
Explanation Style
Internal
External
Stable
Global
"I'm incapable of doing anything right."
"All institutions chronically make mistakes."
Specific
"I always have trouble figuring my balance."
"This bank has always used antiquated techniques."
Unstable
Global
"I have had the flu for a couple of weeks and I have let everything slide."
"Holiday shopping demands that one throw oneself into it."
Specific
"The one time I didn't enter a check is the one time my check gets overdrawn."
"I'm surprised--my bank has never made an error before."
Now see a similar graphic below, focusing on the battered woman's attributions for her abuse:
Explanation Style
Internal
External
Stable
Global
"I am worthless."
"He is a violent man."
Specific
"I choose the wrong partners."
"He has a hard time with supposed incompetence ."
Unstable
Global
"I haven't been doing anything right, lately."
"He hates women."
Specific
"I made a mistake marrying this man ."
"He just had a bad day ."
Note. Adapted from "Causal Explanations as a Risk Factor for Depression: Theory and Evidence." by C. Peterson and M. E. P. Seligman, 1984, Psychological Review, 91, p. 340. Copyright 1984 by American Psychological Association.
The woman who believes in her global incompetence will have a difficult time accepting that she can make it on her own. Learned helplessness is one answer to the "Why doesn't she leave?" question. Learned helplessness results in extremely low self esteem and self confidence. She believes what he has told her from the beginning, "You can't make it without me."
Actual helplessness is another. Frequently the battered woman lacks marketable skills and has young children to care for. Practically speaking, it will be very difficult for her to support her young family. Even with skills, women earn less than men. Without skills, they earn minimum wage and usually do not have benefits such as health insurance. It is extremely difficult to make a living with small children to care for. It is much easier to stay and put up with periodic abuse than to endure chronic poverty.
Another reason is, as Jacobson and Gottman (1998) put it, "Holding on to the Dream." The dream is that he will change. That he will become the "good one, the charming one" in that dual personality she sees. If she manages to become the right person for him, he will always be this way and they can have a normal family life.
A strong deterrent to leaving is fear. He has promised her he will hunt her down "to the ends of the earth" and kill her if she leaves. Or he has promised he will take the children from her. Or he has promised to attack her family if she leaves, or even kill them, and so forth. And, in fact, there is good evidence that the risk of homicide increases after she leaves. Jacobson and Gottman (1998, pps 204 and 237) cited Strauss et al. (1980) and Wilson and Daly (1993) in making this statement.
Similar Characteristics in battering relationships
Some similarities in battering relationships that Walker (1979) noted follow:
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Initial surprise--taken unaware
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layer of gentleness that masked brutal potential.
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Unpredictability of acute battering
- Overwhelming jealousy
- Unusual sexuality (in may cases, girl-child incest occurs).
- Lucid recall of details of acute battering incident (by the woman).
- Concealment.
- Drinking.
- Extreme psychological abuse.
- Family threats.
- Extraordinary terror through the use of guns and knives.
- Omnipotence.
- Awareness of death potential.
Controlling behaviors are consistently observable in the batterer's behavior. This is part of the system in which we live and also a part of his personal makeup. While it is likely that it originates in his own sense of helplessness, this is irrelevant to her treatment. As a matter of fact, it is important that she focus on her own safety and rights as a human being and not concern herself with his issues. When she understands too well his problems, she is inclined to stay in order to "help" him.
Frequently, the batterer threatens his wife with her death or death of the children or family members if she leaves him. Some will track her down to intimidate, harass, and continue the abuse even after separation.
Treatment/Rehabilitation
Primary Prevention
Walker (1979) stressed the importance of primary prevention which includes the elimination of sex-role stereotyping; reduction of violence in media and advertisements; reduction in harshness in child discipline; education regarding victimization processes; and education of agencies that deal with social problems to be more supportive of women, teaching the enforcement of proper rules and regulations for treating battered women (to police and courts), and the development of common support groups.
Remembering again, Seligman's (1975) dogs, the animals which were "immunized," that is, those which learned ahead of time that they could escape the electric shocks by jumping the barrier could not be made helpless. Young girls who learn of their own potency and abilities early on are not likely to be stuck in violent relationships (or in putting up with sexual harassment or other types of victimization).
Walker focused on the battered woman. For primary prevention which focuses on the batterer appropriately includes education of police, courts, and probation officers, regarding the importance of accountability for the batterer.
Secondary Intervention
Secondary Intervention includes the labeling of battered women and their battering husbands to bring the problem out into the open; initiating earlier treatment; offering many kinds of assistance to the woman, that is, home visits, telephone hot lines, outpatient clinic visits, crisis intervention counseling, legal advice, financial assistance, and information distribution; help women resolve situations with the least outside interference; teach helpers to take cues from the women.
Tertiary Intervention
Tertiary Intervention includes: safe house; immediate hospitalization or emergency treatment; and long term psychotherapy (from a feminist perspective). The treatment described earlier frequently works well with battered women. Helping them shift their attributions for the violence from internal, stable and global to internal, unstable and specific, helps them to gain the motivation to move out of the situation. Adding the external dimensions to the attributions further alleviates the depression that goes with long-endured violence. Add to this, for the batterers, Jacobson and Gottman's (1998) recommendations to the courts for making him accountable. Arrest him, put him in jail. Do not let him get off the hook by attending one or two "anger management groups." If he is adjudicated in to treatment and is not compliant, revoke his probation. Education and psychotherapy for the batterer are effective, if at all, only after he has been held accountable by an outside authority who makes it clear assault on his wife is not acceptable behavior.
Long term therapy is frequently needed to help a woman claim (or reclaim) her own sense of controllability and potency in the world. Walker (1985) talks about the battered woman's "need to replace survival behaviors with more useful behaviors." She lists several goals of long term therapy after a violent relationship. They include:
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alleviation of depression (learned helplessness)
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alleviation of pervasive sense of anxiety and fear
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need to develop trust, intimacy and friendship in relationships
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experience and express anger without fearing retaliation
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to experience sensuality and sexuality for their own pleasure
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to reclaim their own bodies and emotional space without fear of invasion (p. 209)
These all contribute to her increasing sense of her own "controllability" of her life. Battered Women learn to mute their own emotions so that they present a "flat" appearance to the world. They also tend to express their emotions via somatization. "Many women suffer from severe tension headache, stomach ailments, high blood pressure, allergic skin reactions, and heart palpitations" (Walker, 1979, p. 61). They tend, that is, to channel their feelings into physical symptoms. Physical symptoms are more nearly acceptable to controlling batterers than are emotions such as fear and sadness and certainly than anger.
Assessment of Battered Woman Syndrome
There is, in the literature, a proliferation of definitions of Battered Woman Syndrome. Many authors, including Dr. Lenore Walker, view The Battered Woman Syndrome as a subcategory of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a category listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV published by the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM-IV describes PTSD as follows:
The essential feature of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor involving direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or other threat to one's physical integrity; or witnessing an event that involves death, injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of another person; or learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death or injury experienced by a family member or other close associate. The person's response to the event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror (or in children, the response must involve disorganized or agitated behavior). The characteristic symptoms resulting from the exposure to the extreme trauma include persistent reexperiencing of the traumatic event, persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness, and persistent symptoms of increased arousal. The full symptom picture must be present for more than 1 month, and the disturbance must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Rosewater (1982) administered the MMPI to 118 battered women, most of whom were still in abusive relationships. Elevations on the separate scales of the MMPI for the battered women were similar to those for schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder.
Both battered women and schizophrenic women had statistically significant T-scores (T>70) on scales 6 (which measure paranoia) and 8 (which measures schizophrenia). In addition, battered women had statistically significant mean elevation on scale 4 (which measures anger). (p. 219)
It is important to take into account the woman's life style. While the elevations for the schizophrenic or patient with borderline personality disorder (BPD) indicate lack of touch with reality, the battered woman's elevations indicate a realistic grasp of her situation. Her "paranoia" is not delusional. Someone IS out to get her. Scale 8 measures schizophrenia (or confusion and overwhelmedness). Some of the symptoms are: social isolation or withdrawal, impairment in role functioning (wage earner, student, homemaker), blunted or inappropriate affect, digressive, vague, over elaborate, circumstantial or metaphorical speech, paranoid ideation.
My own research may help to explain how some very high achieving women can experience Battered Woman Syndrome and Learned Helplessness. (Stauber, 1994). It indicates that some people who suffer from Learned Helplessness do NOT appear to be depressed and passive. They are, in fact, excessively self-reliant, using self-reliance as a counter to depressive moods.
Are You in a Battering Relationship?
Methods of Control:
These are some of the ways abusive partners control the victims of their abuse.
Isolation: Controlling what she does, who she sees and talks to, where she goes, where she goes.
Intimidation: Putting her in fear by using looks, actions, gestures, loud voice, smashing things, destroying her property.
Using Male Privilege: Treating her like a servant. Making all the family decisions. Acting like the "master of the castle."
Threats: Making and/or carrying out threats to do something to hurt her emotionally. Threatening to take the children, commit suicide, report her to welfare.
Using Children: Making her feel guilty about the children, using the children to give messages, using visitation as a way to harass her.
Economic Abuse: Trying to keep her from getting or keeping a job. Making her ask for money, giving her an allowance, taking her money.
Emotional Abuse: Putting her down or making her feel bad about herself, calling her names. Making her think she's crazy. Mind games.Sexual Abuse: Making her do sexual things against her will, Physically attacking the sexual parts of her body. Treating her like a sex object. (Pence & Paymar, 1986)
A questionnaire from The Battered Women's Task Force of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence:
Does your partner:
hit, punch, slap, shove, or bite you?
threaten to hurt you or your children?
threaten to hurt friends or family members?
have sudden outbursts of anger or rage?
behave in an overprotective manner?
become jealous without reason?
prevent you from seeing family or friends?
prevent you from going where you want, when you want?
prevent you from working or attending school?
destroy personal property or sentimental items?
deny you access to family assets such as bank accounts, credit cards, or the car?
control all finances and force you to account for what you spend?
force you to have sex against your will?
force you to engage in sexual acts you do not enjoy?
insult you or call you derogatory names?
use intimidation or manipulation to control you or your children?
humiliate you in front of your children?
turn minor incidents into major arguments?
abuse or threaten to abuse pets? (Miller, 1995)
If you are being abused and want help in leaving, get help from people who deal with battering daily. Most major cities have shelters.
A national hot line number is:
1-800-799-7233
Safety Strategies for Battered Women Who Might Have to Quickly Leave:
Keep an extra set of house and car keys hidden somewhere safe so that you can leave quickly.
In a safe place that is accessible to you 24-hours a day (but not in your home), keep some money, important phone numbers, identification, copies of essential legal papers for yourself and your children, a change of clothes, needed medications, and anything else you would want for yourself and your children.
Keep emergency telephone numbers handy; hotline, etc.
Find a trustworthy person you can call on in an emergency, and develop some plans together about contacting the police or finding a temporary place.
Take appointment books, calendars, doodles, address books, etc. Hide or destroy anything that might give him a clue to where you might go.
Take small saleable items; TV's, cameras, jewelry, radios, etc. to sell or pawn.
Take favorite toys for the kids.
Consider setting out food for animals left behind, moving furniture into storage, hiding weapons, not leaving a note. Don't leave clues to your whereabouts. (Cuevas, Dankowski, Giggans, and Ledley, 1989)
Know this: He is highly unlikely to change. If you leave, you are taking a risk, and if you stay you are taking a risk. Only you can make this decision.
References:
Note: the books with two asterisks ** are in our bookstore.
Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M. E. P., Teasdale, J. D. (1978) Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 49-74.
Cuevas, E., Dankowski, K., Giggans, P., and Ledley, E. (1989) Surviving domestic violence: A safety and empowerment guide for battered women, prepared for the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.
Davidson, T. (1977) "Wifebeating: a recurring phenomenon throughout history." In M. Roy (Ed.) Battered Women: A Psychosociological Study of Domestic Violence. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.
Dweck, C. S., & Repucci, N. D. (1973) "Learned helplessness and reinforcement responsibility in children." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25, 109-116.
Flitcraft, Ann and Stark, Evan. (1978) "Notes on the Social Construction of Battering." Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography Vol. 10, pp. 82-83
Fosco, E., & Geer, J. H. (1971) Effects of gaining control over aversive stimuli after differing amounts of no control. Psychology Reports, 29, 1153-1154.
Hiroto, D. S. (1974) Locus of control and learned helplessness. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102, 187-193.
**Jacobson, N.S., & Gottman, J.N., (1998) When men batter women. Simon & Schuster, New York.
**Koss, M.P., Goodman, L.A., Browne, A., Keita, G.P. (Contributor) (1994) No safe haven. American Psychological Association Press, Washington, D.C.
Krantz, D.S., Glass, D.C., & Snyder, M. (1974) Helplessness, stress level, and the coronary-prone behavior pattern. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 284-300.
**Langley, R. & Levy, R. (1977) Wife beating: The silent crisis. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
Medical Therapy as Repression: The Case of the Battered Woman and Wife Abuse: The Facts. (1984) Washington, DC: Center for Women's Policy Studies
**Miller, M.S., (1995) No visible wounds. Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, New York.
**NiCarthy, G. (1986), Getting free: you can end abuse and take back your life. Seattle, Seal Press.
Pence, E. and Paymar, M. (1986) Power and Control
Rhodes, N.R. (1992) "Comparison of MMPI Psychopathic Deviate Scores of Battered and Nonbattered Women." Journal of Family Violence. 7, 4, pp 297-307.
Rosewater, L.B. (1985) "Schizophrenic, Borderline, or Battered?" In Rosewater, L.B. & Walker, L.E.A. (Eds) Handbook of feminist therapy: Women's issues in psychotherapy. Springer Publishing Co., New York.
Seligman, M. (1975) Helplessness: On depression, development and death. San Francisco: Freeman.
**Seligman, M. (1991) Learned Optimism. New York: Knopf.
Stauber, R.J. (1993) Learned helplessness and excessive self-reliance. Dissertation Abstracts.
Strauss, M.A., Gelles, R.J., and Steinmetz, S.K. (1980) Behind closed doors. New York: Doubleday Press.
Violence Against Women: A Week in the Life of America. (1992) Washington, DC: Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Congress,
**Walker, L. (1979) Battered women. New York: Harper and Row.
Walker, L. (1984) The battered woman syndrome. New York: Springer Publishing Co.
Wetzel, L. & Ross, M. A. (1983) Psychological and social ramifications of battering: Observations leading to a counseling methodology for victims of domestic violence. Personnel and Guidance Journal. March, 1983.
Wilson, M. and Daly, M. (1993) "Spousal homicide risk and estrangement," Violence and victims, 8; 3-16
Battered Women
by
Rosemary J. Stauber, PhD
Walker (1984) defined a battered woman as:
a woman, 18 years of age or over, who is or or has been in an intimate relationship with a man who repeatedly subjects or subjected her to forceful physical and/or psychological abuse. (p. 203)
Jacobson and Gottman (1998) discussed battering:Battering is physical aggression with a purpose: that purpose is to control, intimidate, and subjugate another human being. Battering is always accompanied by emotional abuse, is often accompanied by injury, and is virtually always associated with fear and even terror on the part of the battered woman. (p. 25).
Miller (1995) focused only on emotional abuse in her book. She described an abusive marriage as one in which: " . . . a spouse (the man in more than 95 percent of cases) uses his power--be it muscle or subtler manipulation--to control his partner. The irony is that he doesn't control himself (p. 15)."
Notice, Walker's definition included a "subtler manipulation" (which can be equated to emotional abuse). Psychological abuse can be as devastating as physical abuse. Jacobson and Gottman include emotional abuse and bring in the most important element of control. Although control is implied in Walker's definition, Jacobson and Gottman stress that control is the purpose for the violence.
Miller discussed further, the devastation of emotional, or psychological, abuse:
Emotional battering, then, runs the gamut from a steady grinding down of a woman to emotional trauma. While her bones are never broken, her flesh never bruised, her blood never spilled, she is wounded nonetheless. With self-confidence and self-respect gone, she lives, empty, with no self left to assert. She cedes control of her life to her abuser. She is helpless. (Miller, 1995, p 32)
Incidence and Prevalence
It is difficult to determine incidence since many battering incidents are never reported. Early authors estimated 50-60% of women are abused at some time in their lives. These authors also pointed out that battering cuts across socioeconomic lines. While wives of professional men and executives are less likely to show up in shelters for battered women, they exist nevertheless. And independence is a recommended means of preventing spouse abuse, yet many abused women work outside the home, even in professions. How she sees her role as a woman may be a factor. For example, women who have a traditional view of women are more likely to be in a battering situation. Jacobson and Gottman cited Koss, et al. in stating: "Each year at least 1.6 million wives in the United States are severely assaulted by their husbands and at least one-third of all murdered women are killed by husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, or ex-boyfriends."
The following statistics came from various internet sources on battered women.
-
It is estimated that 8 to 12 million women are abused at some time in their life. About 2 million women per year are assaulted by a domestic partner. The physician is often the first person to whom the spouse-abuse victim turns for help.
-
There is no psychological profile of the battered woman; however, at greatest risk are women with the following characteristics:
-
Single, Separated, Or Divorced
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Ages 17 Through 28
-
Alcohol Or Drug Abusers Or Partners Of Abusers
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- Half of all female murder victims are killed by a current or former partner. Battered women account for 20% to 35% of women seeking care for any reason in an emergency room. Battered women constitute about 50% of the mothers of abused children.
- Men can also be abused in intimate relationships, but this is far less common than women as victims. (Most authors say 5% of all reported abuse is inflicted on males.)
The following came from a website citing: The Feminist Majority Foundation and New Media Publishing , Inc. Copyright 1995.
- A 1992 national survey by the Family Violence Prevention Fund found that 13% of women surveyed had been physically attacked by their partner.
- A Philadelphia study found that 20% of women presenting with injuries at emergency rooms were victims of domestic violence. (Center for Women's Policy Studies, 1984 and Filtcraft and Stark, 1978).
- A 1988 study by the National Women Abuse Prevention Project found that physical abuse of women resulted in more injuries to women than rape, muggings and automobile accidents combined.
- In 1992, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported that 1 in 5 of all aggravated assaults reported to the police were aggravated assaults in the home. (Violence Against Women, 1992)
- There exist 3 times more animal shelters than battered women's shelters in the United States. (Violence Against Women, 1992)
- In 1991 at least 21,000 domestic crimes were reported against women every week. (Violence Against Women, 1992)
Cycle of Violence:
Walker (1979) discovered, as she interviewed hundreds of battered women, a battering cycle which explains how the woman becomes victimized and stays in the relationship. According to Walker, there are three phases which vary both in length and intensity for the same couple and between different couples. This cycle has been affirmed by many theorists (as well as shelter staff and therapists.)
Phase I. Tension Building.
This phase consists primarily of verbal abuse and emotional isolation. Women have a variety of ways of handling this phase. They frequently learn to recognize its incipience by the set to the jaw, or the rigidness of his body as he comes in the door. Some women become more nurturing, compliant and solicitous, trying to anticipate his every whim to prevent his anger from exploding. Many attempt to manipulate other family members, especially children, ushering them into another room, keeping them quiet, in order to control his environment for him and keep him from becoming irritated. All of these maneuvers are likely to reinforce his belief that it is up to her to keep his anger from escalating and he feels justified in directing abusiveness toward her. Sometimes a woman will try to stay out of his way. He may see this as rejection and become infuriated. She's in a double-bind. No matter what her response is, it's wrong.
Denial is an important defense mechanism for the abused woman. She minimizes the physical damage and rationalizes the event itself, either blaming herself or blaming his drinking or his job-related stress. She will frequently cover up the violence out of shame and embarrassment and also because she's afraid if she lets others know, he will increase the violence. This cover up behavior often drives away friends and family and increases her isolation.
Walker (1979) and others believe the batterer is spurred on by her passiveness and therefore does not try to control himself. He may realize, at some level, that his behavior is inappropriate, and he is afraid she will leave him. Paradoxically, he escalates in order to keep her captive! Both seem to want to stay in this first phase to avoid the second.
As the tension mounts in this first phase, she finds it harder to restore equilibrium after each minor incident. Less able to defend herself against the pain and more and more exhausted, her anger may begin to show through the complacent mask she has learned to wear. She is likely to begin to withdraw more and more fearing he will recognize the anger and this will set off the explosion that she knows is coming. He observes this moving away and moves in even closer, hovering and watching for any sign of the anger he very likely knows is there. The tension approaches an unbearable level.
Phase II. Acute Battering Incident.
Walker (1979) identifies three characteristics of the violence that were mentioned in many interviews: out of control, "teach her a lesson," and overkill. The batterer doesn't seem to understand what happened. He stops when he thinks he's taught her the lesson, but by then he has inflicted serious injury. In order to justify the behavior, he will recite the petty annoyances and grievances he has against her and will frequently blame drinking or overwork for the explosion.
We often hear that the woman "brings it on herself," and it is true that sometimes the women provoke the battering incident. As the tension mounts, she cannot tolerate the terror, anger and anxiety any longer. By provoking the incident she maintains some sense of control (at least over when it happens), and she knows from experience that the phase following this one is idyllic by comparison.
The battering incident, according to Walker (1979) can last up to twenty-four hours. The trigger for the explosion can be anything and is probably a combination of annoying external events and the internal state of the perpetrator. Generally, he is the only one who can end this phase. One person I was working with talked about a siege in which her husband barricaded the doors and beat her and the children over a two day period. This was all, supposedly, because she had spoken in a friendly manner to the mailman.
The battering has nothing to do with the woman's behavior, although he claims it does. Sometimes the batterer awakens his wife to begin the assault. Beginning with a verbal barrage, he is infuriated if she answers back in kind and even more infuriated if she stays silent. Remember, also, Jacobson and Gottman's definition cited above. The reason for the battering is to bring her under control or to maintain control.
Phase Three. Kindness and Contrite Loving Behavior.
This phase completes the victimization because she is convinced this is the real person. All of the tension of the first two phases is gone. He believes she won't do it again, that he has taught her the lesson. He arrives (maybe in her hospital room) with flowers, candy and gifts. If she resists his approaches, he enlists his family to help and soon the two are together again. A symbiotic bonding takes place. They think together they can conquer the world. The sense of over dependence and over-reliance on each other is obvious in each stage, but the bonding aspects are cemented here. Intervention must occur before this stage begins, preferably as the tension mounts in phase I.
Shelters are typically hidden in recognition of the tendency of the batterer to hunt down his wife or get his family to intercede. Women are counseled not to give the address to anyone. And in San Antonio (and probably in most cities), the telephone number does not carry the prefix of the area it is actually located in. In spite of these precautions, a man will occasionally find the place and come to plead with or harass his wife. Sometimes the wife herself gave it to him.
Etiology
While early feminist authors indicted our patriarchal society as a fitting climate and major permission-giving entity for marital violence, more recent research focused on the batterer bringing us new information about the psychological makeup of the batterer.
It is clear, still, that our patriarchal society contributes to the problem by not bringing appropriate accountability to the system. Consider the ancient Roman and English laws. They are the basis for the United States family law which deprived a married woman of legal status and in fact gave her the status of chattel of her husband. Although the laws have been changed and are still changing toward equality for women, the court systems are still permeated with the perspective of male supremacy, and the philosophy that "a man's home is his castle" prevails in police and court systems throughout the land.
Early laws recognized the husband's right, duty, even, to rule and discipline his wife. Then restrictions were introduced, first the "rule of thumb" was devised (a law that stated a wife was to be beaten with a rod no thicker than the man's thumb). This was later replaced with a law that limited the number of stitches inflicted wounds could require before the perpetrator was vulnerable to criminal charges. Gradually these laws have been replaced by an attitude of "benign neglect" which persists in many municipal systems, in spite of laws that recognize assault against a spouse as a criminal offense. In San Antonio, emotional abuse is a Class C misdemeanor.
Walker (1979) cited the custom of blaming women for being beaten (Why doesn't she leave? She must be masochistic. She provokes it.) While this has been changing in the past two decades primarily because of women's efforts to bring these issues into the open with public education and the provision of safe-houses and shelters, the tendency is still present today. Walker cites William Ryan's (1971) "blame the victim" explanation of the justification for prejudicial attitudes in racial discrimination and uses it to explain these attitudes toward battered women. It is easier to be comfortable with the poverty of minorities if we convince ourselves that it's their fault they are poor (or they prefer living that way) and it's easier to be comfortable with women being abused if we convince ourselves that it's their fault or they like it.
As Walker (1979) pointed out:
Blaming women for causing men to batter them has resulted in their shame, embarrassment, denial, further loss of self-esteem. The batterer feels justified in his violence, because society says it is really the woman's fault. It perpetuates his notion that he should beat her because she did something to make him angry. What gets lost in this victim precipitation ideology is the fact that this violence is NOT acceptable behavior. (p. 15)
Many authors talk about the 911 call that brings the police. The woman is hysterical and distraught and the man is calm and collected. They tend to blame her. From Jacobson & Gottman:
During the early years of mandatory arrest laws the confused police officer would often arrest both parties instead of just the batterer. At times, the battered woman would be arrested instead of the perpetrator. This occurred in part because police officers would enter a scene and find an enraged, apparently out-of-control woman, and a calm, rational man. (p 214)
Why does she stay?
"Why do they stay?" is frequently the question.
The Original Learned Helplessness Theory
Martin Seligman (1975) developed a theory of Learned Helplessness which offers an elegant explanation for the difficult-to-understand phenomenon of the woman who stays and stays and stays in the battering situation.
Seligman's original theory can be stated as follows:
When an individual has no way to control the outcome of a situation, s/he feels a lack of motivation to TRY control the outcome; has difficulty learning that s/he CAN have an affect on the outcome and is generally fearful and/or depressed. (See Seligman, 1975 pp. 55-56).
Helplessness Saps the Motivation to Initiate Responses
Seligman and his colleagues performed the following experiments to demonstrate learned helplessness in dogs:
On the first day, the experimenters strapped dogs into Pavlovian hammocks; they applied electric shocks randomly. The shocks caused no damage to the animals, and they were moderately painful. Since the slings kept the animals from moving, they could not escape the shocks, and the randomness added a dimension in that they couldn't even learn to predict when the shocks were coming.
On the second day, the experimenters moved the animals to double cages with a low barrier between the two cages. When a shock was applied to the cage the dog was in, it could escape the pain by jumping to the other side. However, two-thirds of the dogs, instead of jumping the barrier, thereby escaping the shock, would lie in the bottom of the cage and whimper. The helplessness appeared to generalize to other areas since the helpless dogs were passive and submissive outside the shuttle box, as well!
Helplessness Disrupts the Ability to Learn
A naive dog that accidentally jumps a barrier during helplessness trials will repeat the process readily to avoid future shocks. Dogs that have been submitted to helplessness training, however, do not seem to absorb this learning. Even after accidentally making the move that brings escape from the shocks, they continue, in future trials, to accept the shock rather than make the move to escape. Seligman expressed the opinion that uncontrollability causes an organism to think it will do no good to respond.
Helplessness Produces Emotional Disturbance
The dogs' passive behaviors were seen as indications of emotional deficits. Seligman (1975), equated learned helplessness to depression in humans.
Learned Helplessness and Humans
Similar studies, based on this original model of learned helplessness, have been performed on several species, including human beings. Demonstrating the application of this theory to human beings, several studies were performed using people (Hiroto, 1974). No, they didn't use uncontrollable shock on humans. They used unsolvable puzzles, uncontrollable loud aversive noise, etc. Several researchers have supported Seligman's theory with their findings of deficits in human subjects (Dweck & Repucci, 1973; Fosco & Geer, 1971; Hiroto, 1974; Krantz, Glass, & Snyder, 1974). Lenore Walker (1979, 1984) used the construct of learned helplessness to explain battered women's tendency to remain within a violent relationship. Several authors challenge this theory as applied to battered women saying it's too simplistic an explanation.
While I agree that the learned helplessness theory is only one possible explanation for a battered woman's refusal to leave a battering situation, I submit that the people who deny its usefulness have not gone far enough in their understanding of the theory. The reformulated model clarifies considerably.
In 1978 Seligman, with colleagues, Teasdale and Abramson updated the theory of learned helplessness in order to explain the impact that humans' ability to think had on the outcome of uncontrollability. Some reacted with helplessness and others "bounced back right away." What was the difference? they asked. Eventually they produced the reformulated learned helplessness model which took into account the differences in human reactions that were linked to attribution theory (Seligman, 1991). Attribution theory focuses on the individual's explanation of the outcome, i.e., what s/he thinks is the cause of the event.
The Reformulated Model
The work of Seligman with Abramson and Teasdale (Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, 1978) recognized certain inadequacies in the original theory in that it did not focus on the individual's understanding of the CAUSE of the event, at all. It did not differentiate between internal and external control (whether the individual blamed self or others) and did not address the issues of generalization and chronicity (whether the individual perceived the cause to be something that was present in all situations and overtime). The researchers then incorporated attribution theory into their model in order to compensate for the weaknesses of the original theory as applied to human beings.
While negative events could contribute to a sense of uncontrollability and therefore helplessness in human beings, even more important is how the individual thinks about those negative events. Does s/he believe the problem to be unsolvable; or to be solvable but s/he lacks the ability to solve it? Does s/he attribute the cause to her/his own actions or personality traits? And, if so, does s/he see these actions and/or personality traits as permanent and present in all kinds of situations?
An assessment of internal/external attribution, then, is critical to the determination of learned helplessness in a human being. According to the reformulated model, global/specific and stable/unstable attributions are equally important. Global attributions are likely to lead to a sense of helplessness in all kinds of situations and stable attributions are likely to lead to a chronic sense helplessness.
The reformulated learned helplessness model generated by Abramson et al. (1978) can be stated as follows: In the presence of uncontrollable negative events, the generation of learned helplessness depends upon the individual's explanatory style: an individual who attributes the cause of a bad event to her/his own inadequacy in a way that applies in all situations and over time experiences learned helplessness. In addition, attributing positive events to someone else, related to a specific situation and at an instant in time add to the sense of helplessness. ("My boss was being generous that day" as opposed to "I'm smart and industrious" to explain a promotion.)
On the other hand, an individual who explains the cause of a bad event as due to outside events or circumstances and who explains positive events with internal, global and stable attributions is less likely to become depressed.
This societal attitude contributes significantly to the sense of helplessness that makes it very difficult for the woman to leave. Consider Seligman's (1975) original theory of Learned Helplessness. Each battering incident is a "random shock." Each attempt to escape is met with a form of the "Pavlovian hammock," i.e., uncontrollability.
For example: At the first battering incident, she goes home and mother says, if not actually, in effect, "You made your bed, now lie in it." She goes to the minister or priest, who counsels her on being more loving to her mate and then he won't beat her. She goes to the doctor who says, "What did you do to upset him so?" and gives her a tranquilizer so she'll be less agitated and provoking. She calls the police who answer her call and say they must see the violence in order to arrest him and then, after they leave, he beats her up for calling them. Or, the policeman says, "He's claiming you attacked him. It's your word against his." She goes to municipal court to file charges and is told she can't get a restraining order unless she files for divorce. She convinces her husband to go to a marriage counselor who stresses the importance of effective communication, thereby including her as part of the problem. (Remember, the battering occurs out of his need to control her absolutely.) So she begins to understand there is no escape and she is very likely to begin to accept his explanation. He beats her because she's "worthless," "a slut," "a piece of shit," and so forth. (Note: these are global statements about who she IS.)
Then consider the reformulated learned helplessness model. If she is accepting full blame for his beating her because she is inadequate or bad, she's in that devastating depressive position. She will have difficulty being motivated to escape and she will have difficulty learning that she can have any impact at all on her situation. Remember, Seligman's (1975) dogs. Even when they were out of the sling and could easily escape, they lay in the bottom of the cage and whimpered. In an effort to reteach them that they could escape, the researchers attached leashes to their collars and dragged them across the barrier to escape. It took between 50 to 200 times for the animals to learn they could get away from the painful shock. (Normal dogs, when appropriately reinforced, learn new tricks in 6 - 10 trials.) Women tend to leave and return to their batterers five or six times before their final leave-taking.
In the early days of a Women's Shelter I am familiar with, there was a rule that women who went back to their husbands could not return to the shelter. This was in the late 70s, before we knew so much. They were, in fact, being further abused by the agency that was set up to help them escape their situation.
See graphics below:
Figure 1. Reformulated Model Examples of Causal Explanations
Event "My Checking Account is Overdrawn"
Explanation Style
Internal |
External |
|
| Stable | ||
Global |
"I'm incapable of doing anything right." | "All institutions chronically make mistakes." |
Specific |
"I always have trouble figuring my balance." | "This bank has always used antiquated techniques." |
| Unstable | ||
Global |
"I have had the flu for a couple of weeks and I have let everything slide." | "Holiday shopping demands that one throw oneself into it." |
Specific |
"The one time I didn't enter a check is the one time my check gets overdrawn." | "I'm surprised--my bank has never made an error before." |
Now see a similar graphic below, focusing on the battered woman's attributions for her abuse:
Explanation Style
Internal |
External |
|
| Stable | ||
Global |
"I am worthless." | "He is a violent man." |
Specific |
"I choose the wrong partners." | "He has a hard time with supposed incompetence ." |
| Unstable | ||
Global |
"I haven't been doing anything right, lately." | "He hates women." |
Specific |
"I made a mistake marrying this man ." | "He just had a bad day ." |
Note. Adapted from "Causal Explanations as a Risk Factor for Depression: Theory and Evidence." by C. Peterson and M. E. P. Seligman, 1984, Psychological Review, 91, p. 340. Copyright 1984 by American Psychological Association.
The woman who believes in her global incompetence will have a difficult time accepting that she can make it on her own. Learned helplessness is one answer to the "Why doesn't she leave?" question. Learned helplessness results in extremely low self esteem and self confidence. She believes what he has told her from the beginning, "You can't make it without me."
Actual helplessness is another. Frequently the battered woman lacks marketable skills and has young children to care for. Practically speaking, it will be very difficult for her to support her young family. Even with skills, women earn less than men. Without skills, they earn minimum wage and usually do not have benefits such as health insurance. It is extremely difficult to make a living with small children to care for. It is much easier to stay and put up with periodic abuse than to endure chronic poverty.
Another reason is, as Jacobson and Gottman (1998) put it, "Holding on to the Dream." The dream is that he will change. That he will become the "good one, the charming one" in that dual personality she sees. If she manages to become the right person for him, he will always be this way and they can have a normal family life.
A strong deterrent to leaving is fear. He has promised her he will hunt her down "to the ends of the earth" and kill her if she leaves. Or he has promised he will take the children from her. Or he has promised to attack her family if she leaves, or even kill them, and so forth. And, in fact, there is good evidence that the risk of homicide increases after she leaves. Jacobson and Gottman (1998, pps 204 and 237) cited Strauss et al. (1980) and Wilson and Daly (1993) in making this statement.
Similar Characteristics in battering relationships
Some similarities in battering relationships that Walker (1979) noted follow:
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Initial surprise--taken unaware
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layer of gentleness that masked brutal potential.
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Unpredictability of acute battering
- Overwhelming jealousy
- Unusual sexuality (in may cases, girl-child incest occurs).
- Lucid recall of details of acute battering incident (by the woman).
- Concealment.
- Drinking.
- Extreme psychological abuse.
- Family threats.
- Extraordinary terror through the use of guns and knives.
- Omnipotence.
- Awareness of death potential.
Controlling behaviors are consistently observable in the batterer's behavior. This is part of the system in which we live and also a part of his personal makeup. While it is likely that it originates in his own sense of helplessness, this is irrelevant to her treatment. As a matter of fact, it is important that she focus on her own safety and rights as a human being and not concern herself with his issues. When she understands too well his problems, she is inclined to stay in order to "help" him.
Frequently, the batterer threatens his wife with her death or death of the children or family members if she leaves him. Some will track her down to intimidate, harass, and continue the abuse even after separation.
Treatment/Rehabilitation
Primary Prevention
Walker (1979) stressed the importance of primary prevention which includes the elimination of sex-role stereotyping; reduction of violence in media and advertisements; reduction in harshness in child discipline; education regarding victimization processes; and education of agencies that deal with social problems to be more supportive of women, teaching the enforcement of proper rules and regulations for treating battered women (to police and courts), and the development of common support groups.
Remembering again, Seligman's (1975) dogs, the animals which were "immunized," that is, those which learned ahead of time that they could escape the electric shocks by jumping the barrier could not be made helpless. Young girls who learn of their own potency and abilities early on are not likely to be stuck in violent relationships (or in putting up with sexual harassment or other types of victimization).
Walker focused on the battered woman. For primary prevention which focuses on the batterer appropriately includes education of police, courts, and probation officers, regarding the importance of accountability for the batterer.
Secondary Intervention
Secondary Intervention includes the labeling of battered women and their battering husbands to bring the problem out into the open; initiating earlier treatment; offering many kinds of assistance to the woman, that is, home visits, telephone hot lines, outpatient clinic visits, crisis intervention counseling, legal advice, financial assistance, and information distribution; help women resolve situations with the least outside interference; teach helpers to take cues from the women.
Tertiary Intervention
Tertiary Intervention includes: safe house; immediate hospitalization or emergency treatment; and long term psychotherapy (from a feminist perspective). The treatment described earlier frequently works well with battered women. Helping them shift their attributions for the violence from internal, stable and global to internal, unstable and specific, helps them to gain the motivation to move out of the situation. Adding the external dimensions to the attributions further alleviates the depression that goes with long-endured violence. Add to this, for the batterers, Jacobson and Gottman's (1998) recommendations to the courts for making him accountable. Arrest him, put him in jail. Do not let him get off the hook by attending one or two "anger management groups." If he is adjudicated in to treatment and is not compliant, revoke his probation. Education and psychotherapy for the batterer are effective, if at all, only after he has been held accountable by an outside authority who makes it clear assault on his wife is not acceptable behavior.
Long term therapy is frequently needed to help a woman claim (or reclaim) her own sense of controllability and potency in the world. Walker (1985) talks about the battered woman's "need to replace survival behaviors with more useful behaviors." She lists several goals of long term therapy after a violent relationship. They include:
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alleviation of depression (learned helplessness)
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alleviation of pervasive sense of anxiety and fear
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need to develop trust, intimacy and friendship in relationships
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experience and express anger without fearing retaliation
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to experience sensuality and sexuality for their own pleasure
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to reclaim their own bodies and emotional space without fear of invasion (p. 209)
These all contribute to her increasing sense of her own "controllability" of her life. Battered Women learn to mute their own emotions so that they present a "flat" appearance to the world. They also tend to express their emotions via somatization. "Many women suffer from severe tension headache, stomach ailments, high blood pressure, allergic skin reactions, and heart palpitations" (Walker, 1979, p. 61). They tend, that is, to channel their feelings into physical symptoms. Physical symptoms are more nearly acceptable to controlling batterers than are emotions such as fear and sadness and certainly than anger.
Assessment of Battered Woman Syndrome
There is, in the literature, a proliferation of definitions of Battered Woman Syndrome. Many authors, including Dr. Lenore Walker, view The Battered Woman Syndrome as a subcategory of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a category listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV published by the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM-IV describes PTSD as follows:
The essential feature of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor involving direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or other threat to one's physical integrity; or witnessing an event that involves death, injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of another person; or learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death or injury experienced by a family member or other close associate. The person's response to the event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror (or in children, the response must involve disorganized or agitated behavior). The characteristic symptoms resulting from the exposure to the extreme trauma include persistent reexperiencing of the traumatic event, persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness, and persistent symptoms of increased arousal. The full symptom picture must be present for more than 1 month, and the disturbance must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Rosewater (1982) administered the MMPI to 118 battered women, most of whom were still in abusive relationships. Elevations on the separate scales of the MMPI for the battered women were similar to those for schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder.
Both battered women and schizophrenic women had statistically significant T-scores (T>70) on scales 6 (which measure paranoia) and 8 (which measures schizophrenia). In addition, battered women had statistically significant mean elevation on scale 4 (which measures anger). (p. 219)
It is important to take into account the woman's life style. While the elevations for the schizophrenic or patient with borderline personality disorder (BPD) indicate lack of touch with reality, the battered woman's elevations indicate a realistic grasp of her situation. Her "paranoia" is not delusional. Someone IS out to get her. Scale 8 measures schizophrenia (or confusion and overwhelmedness). Some of the symptoms are: social isolation or withdrawal, impairment in role functioning (wage earner, student, homemaker), blunted or inappropriate affect, digressive, vague, over elaborate, circumstantial or metaphorical speech, paranoid ideation.
My own research may help to explain how some very high achieving women can experience Battered Woman Syndrome and Learned Helplessness. (Stauber, 1994). It indicates that some people who suffer from Learned Helplessness do NOT appear to be depressed and passive. They are, in fact, excessively self-reliant, using self-reliance as a counter to depressive moods.
Are You in a Battering Relationship?
Methods of Control:
These are some of the ways abusive partners control the victims of their abuse.
Isolation: Controlling what she does, who she sees and talks to, where she goes, where she goes.
Intimidation: Putting her in fear by using looks, actions, gestures, loud voice, smashing things, destroying her property.
Using Male Privilege: Treating her like a servant. Making all the family decisions. Acting like the "master of the castle."
Threats: Making and/or carrying out threats to do something to hurt her emotionally. Threatening to take the children, commit suicide, report her to welfare.
Using Children: Making her feel guilty about the children, using the children to give messages, using visitation as a way to harass her.
Economic Abuse: Trying to keep her from getting or keeping a job. Making her ask for money, giving her an allowance, taking her money.
Emotional Abuse: Putting her down or making her feel bad about herself, calling her names. Making her think she's crazy. Mind games.Sexual Abuse: Making her do sexual things against her will, Physically attacking the sexual parts of her body. Treating her like a sex object. (Pence & Paymar, 1986)
A questionnaire from The Battered Women's Task Force of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence:
Does your partner:
hit, punch, slap, shove, or bite you?
threaten to hurt you or your children?
threaten to hurt friends or family members?
have sudden outbursts of anger or rage?
behave in an overprotective manner?
become jealous without reason?
prevent you from seeing family or friends?
prevent you from going where you want, when you want?
prevent you from working or attending school?
destroy personal property or sentimental items?
deny you access to family assets such as bank accounts, credit cards, or the car?
control all finances and force you to account for what you spend?
force you to have sex against your will?
force you to engage in sexual acts you do not enjoy?
insult you or call you derogatory names?
use intimidation or manipulation to control you or your children?
humiliate you in front of your children?
turn minor incidents into major arguments?
abuse or threaten to abuse pets? (Miller, 1995)
If you are being abused and want help in leaving, get help from people who deal with battering daily. Most major cities have shelters.
A national hot line number is:
1-800-799-7233
Safety Strategies for Battered Women Who Might Have to Quickly Leave:
Keep an extra set of house and car keys hidden somewhere safe so that you can leave quickly.
In a safe place that is accessible to you 24-hours a day (but not in your home), keep some money, important phone numbers, identification, copies of essential legal papers for yourself and your children, a change of clothes, needed medications, and anything else you would want for yourself and your children.
Keep emergency telephone numbers handy; hotline, etc.
Find a trustworthy person you can call on in an emergency, and develop some plans together about contacting the police or finding a temporary place.
Take appointment books, calendars, doodles, address books, etc. Hide or destroy anything that might give him a clue to where you might go.
Take small saleable items; TV's, cameras, jewelry, radios, etc. to sell or pawn.
Take favorite toys for the kids.
Consider setting out food for animals left behind, moving furniture into storage, hiding weapons, not leaving a note. Don't leave clues to your whereabouts. (Cuevas, Dankowski, Giggans, and Ledley, 1989)
Know this: He is highly unlikely to change. If you leave, you are taking a risk, and if you stay you are taking a risk. Only you can make this decision.
References:
Note: the books with two asterisks ** are in our bookstore.
Abramson, L. Y., Seligman, M. E. P., Teasdale, J. D. (1978) Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87, 49-74.
Cuevas, E., Dankowski, K., Giggans, P., and Ledley, E. (1989) Surviving domestic violence: A safety and empowerment guide for battered women, prepared for the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.
Davidson, T. (1977) "Wifebeating: a recurring phenomenon throughout history." In M. Roy (Ed.) Battered Women: A Psychosociological Study of Domestic Violence. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.
Dweck, C. S., & Repucci, N. D. (1973) "Learned helplessness and reinforcement responsibility in children." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25, 109-116.
Flitcraft, Ann and Stark, Evan. (1978) "Notes on the Social Construction of Battering." Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography Vol. 10, pp. 82-83
Fosco, E., & Geer, J. H. (1971) Effects of gaining control over aversive stimuli after differing amounts of no control. Psychology Reports, 29, 1153-1154.
Hiroto, D. S. (1974) Locus of control and learned helplessness. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102, 187-193.
**Jacobson, N.S., & Gottman, J.N., (1998) When men batter women. Simon & Schuster, New York.
**Koss, M.P., Goodman, L.A., Browne, A., Keita, G.P. (Contributor) (1994) No safe haven. American Psychological Association Press, Washington, D.C.
Krantz, D.S., Glass, D.C., & Snyder, M. (1974) Helplessness, stress level, and the coronary-prone behavior pattern. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 284-300.
**Langley, R. & Levy, R. (1977) Wife beating: The silent crisis. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
Medical Therapy as Repression: The Case of the Battered Woman and Wife Abuse: The Facts. (1984) Washington, DC: Center for Women's Policy Studies
**Miller, M.S., (1995) No visible wounds. Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, New York.
**NiCarthy, G. (1986), Getting free: you can end abuse and take back your life. Seattle, Seal Press.
Pence, E. and Paymar, M. (1986) Power and Control
Rhodes, N.R. (1992) "Comparison of MMPI Psychopathic Deviate Scores of Battered and Nonbattered Women." Journal of Family Violence. 7, 4, pp 297-307.
Rosewater, L.B. (1985) "Schizophrenic, Borderline, or Battered?" In Rosewater, L.B. & Walker, L.E.A. (Eds) Handbook of feminist therapy: Women's issues in psychotherapy. Springer Publishing Co., New York.
Seligman, M. (1975) Helplessness: On depression, development and death. San Francisco: Freeman.
**Seligman, M. (1991) Learned Optimism. New York: Knopf.
Stauber, R.J. (1993) Learned helplessness and excessive self-reliance. Dissertation Abstracts.
Strauss, M.A., Gelles, R.J., and Steinmetz, S.K. (1980) Behind closed doors. New York: Doubleday Press.
Violence Against Women: A Week in the Life of America. (1992) Washington, DC: Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Congress,
**Walker, L. (1979) Battered women. New York: Harper and Row.
Walker, L. (1984) The battered woman syndrome. New York: Springer Publishing Co.
Wetzel, L. & Ross, M. A. (1983) Psychological and social ramifications of battering: Observations leading to a counseling methodology for victims of domestic violence. Personnel and Guidance Journal. March, 1983.
Wilson, M. and Daly, M. (1993) "Spousal homicide risk and estrangement," Violence and victims, 8; 3-16
